Minutes to Midnight
by arcanelegacy
Summary: It's ten minutes to midnight on the last day of the year, and Wesker is alone working in his office. It's the same every year. But Ada is also there this year. Which is different.


**Disclaimer: **Anything not immediately recognizable as a registered trademark of Capcom's is probably mine. Anything you do recognize as Capcom's I'm simply borrowing. I seek no monetary gain from this. I just wrote for fun.

**Summary: **It's ten minutes to midnight on New Year's Eve, and he's still in his office, working away, same as always. Well. She's here too. So that's different.

**Rating: ** T

**Author's Note: **This was a request by BetaReject over on LJ. She admitted being curious about the pairing (which I like a lot) and asked how I would write them. Now, I ship them, but I fully acknowledge that it's not the most romantic of pairings. So I don't plan on writing it as such. I find their relationship works best when it's underplayed and rides almost entirely on subtext and unspoken feelings, and I tried to write it that way.

Also: This takes place post-RE2. Wesker and Ada are both still working for the Agency, though that won't last.

* * *

Minutes to Midnight

It seemed like yet another new year was going to find him sitting behind his desk, pondering his computer screen. Ada couldn't help but roll her eyes as she slipped past the open door to Wesker's office. It was about twenty minutes to midnight on the last day of the year, and they were the only two people in the entire facility, security personnel aside.

Looking back over her shoulder, Ada sighed and wondered if Wesker were even _aware_ that it was a holiday at all. She certainly wouldn't have put it past him. He'd never been one to care for holidays, not in all the years she'd known him – though he _had_ attended every one of Umbrella's sponsored holiday parties.

That was how they'd met, after all.

She ducked inside the break room and went straight to the coffee pot sitting on the counter. A small smile worked its way onto her face as she poured herself a steaming mug of the fresh coffee. It was her favorite blend, an expensive import from Africa. One of the lab techs, Dan something-or-other, had gotten her a few bags' worth for the corporation's Secret Santa; a surprisingly perceptive gift considering she never left her stash where anyone might see it – least of all one of the lab techs.

_Which means that at least someone around here used his brain and asked around,_ she thought, though the only person she could think of who might have any knowledge of her secret stash was Wesker – and God help the poor soul who dared ask Wesker a question not immediately relevant to his research.

She chuckled softly, tightening her grip on the mug and savoring the way it felt against her icy fingers. With only a skeleton crew on security (a skeleton crew that was made up of some of the biggest, burliest men she had ever seen this side of a tyrant), the facility had no reason to be kept comfortably warm, and the building's temperature had been steadily dropping for some time. Though Ada was not typically bothered by the cold, tonight it had begun to creep into her fingers, making them clumsy and slow.

_All the more reason to finish here and go home,_ she said to herself_._ And, with that thought serving as a prompt, she slipped from the break room, mug in hand. As she left, she took a look at the clock mounted on the wall above the door.

Eleven minutes.

This time Ada actually looked inside Wesker's office as she passed it by. He was just where she expected him to be: at his computer, his elbows on his desk, his hands folded one over top of the other.

_Have you even moved at all, Wesker?_

The way he could focus on that screen with such intensity still amazed her, even after all these years. She'd get annoyed and fidgety after just a few hours – nothing a simple stretch and a few seconds away from her computer couldn't fix – but Wesker could sit there all day, every day, without stopping. She'd seen him get lunch delivered some days, pass on others, and on a few – albeit rare – occasions, she'd spotted him eating something he must have brought from home (though he could have stolen it out of the break room). Like many of the others who worked here, she sometimes wondered if he even left this place at night.

Ada shook her head as she followed the curve of the hallway around the building and slipped into her own office. It was a good-sized space with a decent view of the facility's enclosed tropical garden some seven stories below, as well as the inner arc of the rest of the O-shaped skyscraper.

_Hard to believe this is a military facility,_ she thought, looking at the tops of the palms as she ducked inside her office.

She went inside and set her coffee down on her desk, then Ada crossed the room and turned on the flat-screen television mounted on the wall by the door. She turned hers onto one of those obnoxious, twenty-four hour news networks (at the moment, it wasn't airing any news at all, but a reporter standing bundled up in Times Square), muted the volume, and sat down at her desk.

According to the clock on her computer, which she figured was a little more accurate than her watch, there were seven minutes left.

Seven minutes, and she'd ring in the New Year all alone.

Sighing, Ada reached across her desk and picked up an open file. She flipped through it, eyes narrowing in concentration.

"A glass of champagne, my dear Ada? It's more holiday-appropriate than coffee."

Ada started and lifted her gaze. Wesker was standing just inside the doorway, studying her through his dark sunglasses. He had a bottle of champagne in one hand and two flutes in the other.

She hadn't even heard him coming.

"This was a Christmas gift," she said, casually shrugging as a means of regaining her composure. She turned her head and looked back at him out of the corners of her eyes, wondering what the hell he was up to. She added, "And coffee is universally appropriate. Any holiday, any season."

Wesker didn't move or speak.

Was he seriously _waiting_ for an invitation into her office?

Ada mentally snorted. If he was, that was a first. Angling her head and raising her eyebrows slightly, she motioned for him to come in and asked, "You have champagne on hand?"

"Certainly. If I recall, it is tradition to toast accomplishments with champagne." Wesker crossed the room and set the bottle and the two flutes down on her desk.

Ignoring his sarcasm, Ada said, "I have never seen you toast – your own accomplishments or anyone else's."

Wesker popped the bottle open and poured two glasses, handing Ada one of them. "I accomplish the most when everyone else has retired home for the evening, I'm afraid. It makes celebrating a rather…lonely experience."

"Understandably so," Ada replied, taking the glass from him.

Silence fell onto the room for a few long seconds, and then Wesker said, "I believe I got your last report."

Ada bit back a smile. To anyone else he'd have sounded condescending, but to her that was a question. He was curious.

She said, "It's not work for _you_."

Wesker frowned. Rather, the corners of his mouth turned down just slightly. Anyone unfamiliar with him wouldn't have noticed a difference – but Ada was not unfamiliar with the subtleties of his facial expressions. "Who else has you running errands?"

Ada really didn't like her assignments being called 'errands,' but decided to let it slide. To Wesker, they _were_ errands, after all. "It's research."

"I never thought you were one to conduct research."

"I have many skills, Wesker." Ada slid from her chair, taking the glass of champagne, and went to stand beside Wesker.

He followed her movements. She could feel his eyes.

"Do you?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, shifting. "I do."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the news report shift its focus to the ball in Times Square. Ada reached for the remote and turned up the volume a fraction more. No sense in going too high – the whole place was an echo chamber even when it was full. You could almost hear conversations going on in one part of the building in another clear on the other side.

"Ten…" the crowds onscreen shouted, their voices made tinny by the cheap speakers, "nine…"

Ada folded her arms across her chest and let her eyes slide out of focus. _Another year,_ she thought, a little sadly.

Beside her, Wesker shifted. Ada glanced at him, keeping her face set.

"Six…Five…"

Beside her, Wesker shifted again, the movements more pronounced this time. Ada's gaze snapped back into focus and she turned to look at him.

He'd angled toward her. Not away.

"Two…"

One by one all of the clocks in the facility turned over from eleven-fifty nine to midnight. The sprinklers out by the garden turned on. In Times Square, it started to snow as the ball dropped, and the crowds cheered, their voices tinny through the flat screen's terrible speakers.

Wesker turned, a small smile – a smile so small no one else would have been able to see tell that it was there – tugging at his lips.

"Happy New Year, Ada," he said, raising his glass.

Ada smiled as well, her signature little half-smile. "Happy New Year, Albert."


End file.
